Angels' closer not an open-and-shut case

Angels reliever Fernando Rodney said he is "not sure" if he is the team's closer this spring. TEXT BY BILL PLUNKETT; FILE PHOTO

TEMPE, Ariz. - With a less than whole-hearted expression of confidence in Fernando Rodney, Angels manager Mike Scioscia left the door open to someone else closing out games for the Angels this season.

"We're going to have guys capable of pitching at the back end of games and Fernando is going to be one of them," Scioscia said. "If he does what he did in the first half of last season when he was lights out, then obviously it's going to put a lot of things in our bullpen lined up the way we need them to be. Obviously if there's things we need to adjust from, we will.

"We've got some power arms on the right side and some balance on the left and really any one of five guys do have the ability to come in and get the last out of the game."

Scioscia stopped short of declaring a full-out competition this spring for the closer's role among those five guys – Rodney, Kevin Jepsen, Jordan Walden and newly-signed left-handers Scott Downs and Hisanori Takahashi. But he also hedged on calling Rodney his "clear-cut closer."

"He's a guy that's going to pitch at the back end of games and if you want to define that as a closer, that's fine," Scioscia said. "We have some terrific power arms in our bullpen from the right side with also some lefties that can close games out. Fernando Rodney is certainly a guy that's going to pitch at the back end of games for us. We need him.

"If he ends up being closer, great. If things evolve in a different factor and he's pitching in the eighth inning like he did last year (with Brian Fuentes as closer) and that's something that progresses as we get into the season, so be it.

"One thing about Fernando – we need him. We need him in a role that's at the back end of our bullpen and we anticipate right now that it's going to be closing games and that he'll do it proficiently as he did at the beginning of last year (during a DL stint for Fuentes). If we have to adjust from that, we will."

Rodney didn't have to hear Scioscia's tepid support to know he has only a tenuous grip on the closer's role. Asked if he considered himself the Angels' closer going into the 2011 season, Rodney said, "I'm not sure."

"I'm not sure of nothing," he said. "I have to show this guy. They make the decisions. I'm ready for competing with anybody. You have to prove it all the time in this game.

"We have a lot of guys in this room that can close games. A lot of guns. I'm ready to compete. I'm ready to go."

In his tenure as Angels manager, Scioscia has never put his closer in that position. The role was handed down from Troy Percival to Francisco Rodriguez to Fuentes with little indecision on his part.

"Francisco, Fuentes, Percival – the guys you mention – went out there and pitched at a high level and there really wasn't a need to make any huge role adjustments with those guys," Scioscia said. "That might be the case here. I don't think the philosophy is any different."

Rodney could have defused the situation (and the off-season speculation about signing a free agent like Rafael Soriano) by pitching at a high level last August and September. Instead, he invited the uncertainty by saving his worst pitching for the end of the 2010 season.

After Fuentes was traded in late August, Rodney took over as closer and blew four saves in September while allowing 33 baserunners (22 hits, eight walks, three hit batsmen) in his final 16 1/3 innings.

"I don't know what was going on last year because I felt great and I was just trying to do my job," Rodney said.

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